'Scientist exodus' over drugs row sacking

The government's former drugs tsar has claimed his sacking threatens the government's entire relationship with the scientific community, not just its drugs policy.

Professor David Nutt was sacked as chairman of the advisory council on the misuse of drugs (ACMD) after being accused of straying into politics by the home secretary.

He has been followed out by ACMD members Dr Les King and Marion Walker, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society representative on the panel, who both resigned in protest at Professor Nutt's dismissal.

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Writing in the Times on Monday, Professor Nutt warned the government 'may lose the rest of its scientific advisers', with the ACMD meeting on November 10th to consider its future.

The professor was a high profile critic of the government's decision to reclassify cannabis as a class B drug, while in January he coined the phrase 'equasy' to highlight the fact that harm from illegal drugs could be equated to harm from other more-established parts of life, in this case horse-riding, which he said caused ten deaths and 100 accidents every year.

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But claiming cannabis was less harmful than alcohol or tobacco was the last straw for Mr Johnson, who said he had broken the 'long-established' principle of attacking the government on policy.

'Professor Nutt was not sacked for his views, which I respect but disagree with,' the home secretary said in a letter to the Guardian.

'He was asked to go because he cannot be both a government adviser and a campaigner against government policy.'

On Professor Nutt's writings on 'equine addiction syndrome', the home secretary added: 'There are not many kids in my constituency in danger of falling off a horse - there are thousands at risk of being sucked into a world of hopeless despair through drug addiction.'

But Professor Nutt said his sacking had cast a 'huge shadow over the relationship of science to policy'.

'It seems unlikely that any 'true' scientist will be able to work for this, or future, home secretaries,' he claimed.

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